charlotte’s not listening
by planet p
Summary: AU; first chapter written a couple of years ago, rated for rape, bad language and gruesomeness; Emily/Lyle
1. Chapter 1

Title: charlotte's not listening

Author: planet p

Written: March 17, 2007; edited: Nov. 9, 2009.

Disclaimer: I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

**_1984_**

Emily awoke with a start, her cry muffled by the hand covering her mouth, and shook her head frantically, mumbling through his fingers. She couldn't breathe.

At a rough guess, the teenager would have placed him in his early to mid twenties. In the sickly droning artificial light, his skin seemed to glow as though polished. His eyes were a stormy grey as he watched her watching him, her own green eyes wide in fear.

Emily remembered the group of people she had assumed must have been doctors. When the tests were done all she wanted to do was to lie down on the cold hard floor, curl up, and go to sleep for a very long time. But that wasn't happening. There were so many tests.

Emily had begun to think she had forgotten how to talk, and that perhaps she might forget how to breathe and just die. She never wanted to wake up, but she could never sleep. The doctors were determined to find something in her that seemed in all likelihood simply not to exist. They said she was special. She never wanted to play dress-ups again. She hated being special.

The man slid his free hand across her abdomen and slipped it underneath the hem of her white tee shirt. Emily shivered and wanted to cry. She didn't like what his hand there made her feel. Her stomach felt suddenly as though it had turned over.

The young man manoeuvred himself – one knee, and then the other – onto the bed, the mattress sagging under the extra weight.

Emily thought that she might be suffocated. Her heart beat a war chant in her chest. She could hardly draw breath at all for the panic.

He took his hand from her mouth, waiting and watching. She hadn't the presence of mind to scream. His newly-freed hand had gone to her inner thigh, his other rested comfortably on her behind. He settled back on his legs and pulled her into his lap.

Emily put a nasty scratch across his cheek before she was stopped by a slap that stung as though she had been belted. She might have sobbed then if not for that she was determined not to show weakness in front of him. She was disorientated and losing.

He leant into her hair and sighed. Her hair smelt of chamomile. He kissed her ear. She wanted to tell him to stop but her throat was blocked with sobs that would have tumbled out.

His hands reached around her back under the elastic waist of her pants and into her white green-spotted underwear, sliding them easily off her bottom.

Tears stung in her eyes, obscuring her vision, so that when she blinked, big fat droplets rolled down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth and spilled over her chin.

The young man pulled her into him. The feeling wasn't one that she particularly liked forced on her and she began to struggle once more, sinking her teeth into the bone and muscle of his shoulder. He swore loudly and took a handful of her hair, shaking her horribly. Her stomach lurched. The second slap ended in a horrible crack. That one was going to leave a mark. Emily felt the world spin for a moment. "Don't you ever fucking do that again," he warned in a menacing hiss. Emily only whimpered.

Emily forced her mind to other things and tried to recall the book she had been reading for school in effort to ignore the jolting fear and anger inside. She could almost feel the paper beneath her fingers, hear the rustle as she turned another page, but that was just flesh and the sound of heavy breathing. The memory escaped her and she dissolved into useless sobs.

* * *

She never expected him to be back. It had been hard enough thinking up a believable cover story for the ugly bruise on her cheekbone. She felt so stupid. She should have told someone. What had been fear and shame was replaced by loathing at her inadequacy.

She had not been properly asleep, her mind going over and over on the subject of her latest "simulation".

She didn't hear the door, but something so suddenly seemed out of kilter and she knew then without having to turn.

She waited till he got close enough before launching herself at him, but not even all her netball training was enough for her to do much against his strength. She earned herself a smack across the face and a bump on the back of her head.

It was a good five minutes before she noticed the stitches and reached up and ran a hand across the bite. She felt him shiver and thought it some small victory.

She continued to squabble over his forcing himself on her, but something had changed, and she found herself wanting to ask if it had hurt terribly, when he had gotten the stitches.

* * *

His third visit, like the first, woke her. She had had a horrible Sim and had been so wretched that she had fallen right to sleep, resolving never to do another Sim again.

She supposed she must have been dreaming, but the memory was lost. She was too tired to struggle much and she wondered with something close to amusement whether he was upset. This spared any external bruises, but then she remembered her little retaliation. He was wearing a pretty white shirt of which she was only slightly jealous. She felt a little jolt of nervous excitement at her plan without knowing if she had the daring to carry it out. Her hands had started to shake just thinking about it and her fingers felt a little weak. It wasn't as though she hadn't seen him without a shirt before, it was just that she had never been the one whose fumbling little fingers had pried it undone before.

She reached up trembling hands for his shirt buttons, praying to God he wouldn't think her funny and smack her one, a funny sort of tingling in her stomach that reminded her of fizzy chews. Her fingers fumbled badly and it took quite a time for her to get just one button undone, but then, she was proud of her little achievement.

It took a further five minutes for her to get enough buttons undone to be able to brush a small part of the shirt off his shoulder in order to see the stitches. The healing process seemed to be coming along nicely and she wondered if she should bite him on the other shoulder next time.

* * *

She had almost begun to doubt that there would be a next time and she wouldn't get her chance to inflict some other scar upon him.

She was lying facing the wall pretending to be asleep because she couldn't sleep, when she heard his familiar footsteps, insanely envious of his boots.

He paused a moment and she suddenly wanted to turn to make sure it was him and not someone else. An irrational fear took her as she imagined that it might be some doctor.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and she turned viciously and began kicking him.

When he finally managed to restrain her he was sitting on her legs with her arms pinned down at her sides, cutting off the circulation to her upper arms. It was time for her to earn another slap, and in doing so, he released her left hand, and before any sort of rationale had kicked in, she slapped him back.

That one got her three fresh bruises. The pain wore away at some of the excitement of adrenalin and she felt suddenly worn.

She could tell it was almost time for the stitches to be taken out and hoped when the time came that it hurt like Hell. She reached up to squeeze his shoulder in mind of eliciting a wince, when he kissed her stomach and she felt an unearthly shiver run through her body below her skin.

She thrashed about, attempting to get him off her. Needless to say, it was a dead loss, and she was finally left alone with a horrible feeling of pins and needles in her arms.

* * *

He didn't return for a week, and she caught herself, in an idle moment, missing him. It was absurd, because all he ever did was abuse her, and afterward she was so angry that she smacked her head into the wall and earned herself a horrible headache because she hadn't been thinking on the momentum which she had built up and almost ended up knocking herself out.

The artificial light was starting to piss her off and she buried her head under her pillow. She woke early in the morning, and felt a funny twist in her stomach at the sight of her own pathetic pyjamas and wished she had something nicer to wear. She realised then that she must have been terribly ill. The next night she didn't sleep at all, imagining he must have found somebody prettier and gone and forgotten all about her. A good two days later, she was back to hating him and wishing he would just go and burn in Hell.

The lights made her feel queasy in the stomach and she cussed into her pillow, clutched to her chest, chin rested upon it.

She fell asleep that way, imagining that she might die without daylight, and was woken by a hand on her arm. Later, she figured he might have been trying to shake her in order to ascertain whether or not she was faking it, but at the time all she knew was that she had been sleeping and he had woken her, and smacked him with her pillow for it.

He grabbed her arms and pushed her back onto the bed, planting himself firmly on top of her. She glared up at him horribly.

Emily noted depressingly that the stitches were gone, and ran a hand across his shoulder absently. He reached up and retrieved her hand, placing it back down on the bed. But Emily didn't want her hand to stay on the bed and trailed it down his back instead. This time he took her hands in his own, the way children held hands, fingers interlaced, and kept them by her head.

Emily shifted this way and that and found that she liked touching him. After all, who else did she get to touch? Turning her head to the right, cheek rested against the unsteady mattress, she bit his hand, along with her own, which perhaps wasn't the best of ideas due to the accompanying pain. She had never been bitten by any dog or feral animal before, but she resolved never to test the theory.

Her right hand was released and she caught his hand and brought it to her lips to kiss it better.

Emily pawed at his back as she attempted to kiss as much of him as she could reach and he just wanted to kiss her shoulder, resulting in them smacking each other in the head.

Emily glowered for perhaps a second before she reached up and pulled him down to her and kissed him on the lips.

They lay in each others arms for some time, staring up at the boring old ceiling, before Emily decided she really needed to get some solid sleep and he really shouldn't have been skulking around in a girl's bedroom with a naked girl at four-thirty in the morning, and elbowed him.

She thought that he might wish her sweet dreams on his way out, but that was what boyfriend and girlfriend did, and they weren't anywhere near.

* * *

After that, he came most nights, and he hardly ever smacked her anymore.

Once she hid under her bed, curled up as small as she could so as to hide in the shadow cast by the small metal structure, and pretended she wasn't there. Not because she was afraid, because she wasn't, not anymore, but because she wanted to see what he would do. Would he worry? Would he call out to her as though he thought she might hear, wherever she might be? But then, he didn't know her name. What would he call her? She tried not to giggle in her excitement, because, as funny as it sounded, she was excited, but she felt a little guilty too. What if she made him sad? She had been about to crawl out of her hiding space when he had come in and she wondered how he always seemed to know the code to open the door. Realising that she wasn't in her bed, he sat down, back to the door, knees drawn up to his chest, and stared into empty space, as though listening. Emily didn't think he would hear her breathing, but her heart was beating too madly for him not to hear. Still, he didn't seem to. After a few moments, or an hour, she had no way of knowing, he stood and left. Emily stayed right where she was and cried herself to sleep.

Evening next, she sat cross-legged on her bed, counting the seconds in alligators until he arrived. She was into the 14,000s when the door was finally opened. Leaping from her bed, she dashed across the room and chucked herself into his arms. They both went flying backwards and smacked into the door but she hardly seemed to notice as she was too busy undressing him between kissing him.

She figured it was okay to miss him now that they were regulars. And it was okay that she didn't know his name because he didn't know hers.

**_2007_**

Emily woke in the middle of the night. She watched the rain against the window for a long while, but after a while she was no longer seeing the blurred street lamps. She wasn't seeing anything at all. Out there where the storm raged, the earth was black, the moon smothered by clouds. That night had been much the same, dark and foreboding, full of shadows lurking, of unknown menaces and broken hearts mended not quite right once too many times.

_Her new room was different. She supposed it might have been a hospital. It was much brighter than the last, the walls painted white instead of grey, but she didn't want to look, so she shut her eyes. They had taken her away when they had found out. At first, she supposed they had been angry at her, because they had thought her bringing up her food was part of some sinister plan at rebellion. She never said anything to indicate otherwise. For a long while, she almost wanted to believe the same herself, that it was all just some psychological backlash. But then, as the days progressed, she gave up on believing in her foolish protestations, and realised that she was now part of something bigger than just "her" and "them". "Her" was suddenly "us", and she cried too much. He wouldn't want her when he found out, or perhaps he already knew and that was why he hadn't come to see her. He was suddenly nothing more than a user and abuser, and she realised, that he had never been anything different. It had been her own stupid heart that had told her otherwise in a feeble attempt at denial. He was never going to visit her, she was never going to see him again, and she couldn't even remember what his voice sounded like anymore because it had been such a long time since that one time he had gotten angry and told her off. He had never told her he loved her, and she had never done anymore than sob or giggle. She was just a stupid little girl living in the delusion that she was all grown up, and the fall had been hard on the way back down._

_But still, every time she looked for him he wasn't there, so she gave up looking. She wasn't going to look at anything if she couldn't look at him. Maybe she would keep her eyes shut for so long that when she opened them again the light would blind her and she would never have to see again._

_She thought that she wouldn't recognise him even if she saw him and she recounted books she had read, places she had been to, speeches she had heard, but none of it seemed to help because no matter how hard she tried, she could always feel him in her. That was indelible. He was a part of her now, even if she was not a part of him, and the child inside her was a part of them both. For as long as that child shall live, they would always be bound, in love and in hate._

_Sleepy from sedative, the girl still managed to pull herself out of bed and launch herself on the nurse who had taken her baby from her arms. She had to be detained by five nurses, and was sedated by a doctor._

_The nurses let her hold the baby for only five minutes every day, just enough time to let her know that they controlled her life now, and the life of her baby. Emily realised her foolishness the moment the child was born. The poor baby would never know any other life than the one they created, would never know to be angry or lonely or sad._

It was raining the day she had been transferred. She remembered because she had leant her head up against the cold glass and watched nothing, her eyes wide but oblivious. She had thought with some amusement that she wasn't even sixteen. What would her mother think of her? If it wasn't bad enough that she had fallen in love with her rapist, she had had his child, only to abandon that very same child to its fate at the hands of an evil corporation who treated other human beings as though they were less than animals. She remembered because she had been soaked through and the man who had rescued her took her to his car and put the heater on.

_He told her he was her father and that she looked just like her mother. This last part she didn't believe, but she knew he wasn't lying when he said he was her father. She recognised his voice, however obscured, from his phone calls to her mother. There was so much to tell him, she realised, but she couldn't talk. Here was her father, there was her baby, and all she wanted was to be back in her little grey room with someone she loved and hated all at the same time._

She had stayed with her father on some military base someplace for two months, in which time she had taken up hand combat, pool, gambling on cards, and came home far too drunk far too many times.

* * *

Emily turned away from the window and went back to her bed to finish reading her comic.

**_1995_**

Charlie sat on the bed allocated to her, dressed in a horrible spotted gown. Her back was partly exposed and the cold had made it stiff.

Aiko, the girl's nurse, stood by the door talking with a man with blue eyes. The man was not the girl's Handler and she instantly grew suspicious. She did not like this man. The nurse and the man seemed to be talking in a foreign language. Charlie had been observing them for some time, and had a rough idea that they were talking about her. The man told the woman that should she report this to the Tower, it would only end in a cover up, and he would see what he could do about scheduling a meeting with a group of people he called the Triumvirate. They would listen, he said. Aiko nodded. She wanted the man to talk to the girl first. The man agreed and the pair headed toward Charlie. Charlie didn't look at them. She had nothing to tell them. Aiko told her the man was a psychologist and that he was going to ask her some questions. Charlie stopped listening.

* * *

Raines shook his head. "She is no concern of ours. You should not have done this."

Lyle looked away from his former Handler. "Triumvirate law states that all corporations under amnesty are required to abide by the industry standards. Mandatory reporting, in relation to conduct regarding the treatment of human subje-"

Raines held his hand up to silence the boy. "No. You will not continue with this foolishness."

Lyle stopped breathing for a moment. "You can't stop me!"

Raines sighed, resigned. "I'm _asking_ you _not to do this_." Seeing that his words had made little or no impression upon the young man stood before him, he shook his head. "You will not be appreciated if you undermine the Tower in this way," he told Lyle in a delicate voice.

Lyle snorted. "You think I give a fuck what the Tower appreciates or doesn't appreciate?"

"Remember that you are employed under the Centre and not the Triumvirate."

Lyle tilted his head. "Is that a threat, doctor?"

Raines sighed heavily. "If you do this-"

"I'm not doing anything wrong!"

"You're- I am constantly telling you, things are not as simple as what is right and what is wrong. Why won't you just-? Promise me you will end this now." He met the younger man's gaze.

Lyle snorted. "I don't need your approval," he spat, "and I certainly don't need your protection! I'm not your little pet anymore!"

"You do this, and they will stop at nothing to discredit you, and don't be so sure that they won't fabricate what they can't find." He regarded a bleeping red light for a moment before looking back to the young man. "Trust me when I say, you cannot go up against the Tower and win. You will only lose. I should know…" he fell short with a sigh and, as though to signify the end of the conversation, took up the receiver and leant across to press the button to take the call on line three.

Lyle slammed the door on his way out.

Raines smiled grimly. That boy had a lot of growing up to do.

* * *

Aiko was out when the psychologist returned. Charlie narrowed her eyes. The man sat down on the bed and passed her an aluminium can. "Got you some soda." He smiled, a little unhappy. "Figure you haven't had it before." Charlie glared. She didn't take the can. The man placed it on one of the machines beside the bed. He didn't drink soda, it made him sick. "My name is Lyle," the man told her, "I spoke to you the other day." Charlie said nothing. "I understand if you don't want to talk…" he fell short. He sat there for some time, watching her watching her legs under the blanket, and then he left because he knew the girl wasn't going to talk until she was ready and his sitting around and asking all sorts of questions was only going to make her uncomfortable and frustrated and angry. He stopped at the door, turned back, and smiled. Charlie hadn't looked up from the blanket. He shut the door behind him and didn't look back.

Charlie waited until he was gone, and then she reached across and snatched up the soda can. The can read: _Paz. Cherry-flavoured soda (Ingredients: carbonated water, sugar, flavour, food acid (330), natural colour, preservative (223).) Made in USA. Corly Foods Pty. Ltd., 1357 Soyuz Road, Dover, Delaware. Please respect the environment and recycle. See bottom for Best Before._ She turned the can over and squinted at the date on the underside of the can, a small smile coming to her mouth. The Can was right, the Best Before _was_ printed on the bottom!

* * *

Charlie scratched and kicked and screamed. They were wrong! They were all wrong! Luke loved her. They didn't understand. She wouldn't let them take her away from him.

Lyle grabbed the girl and held her down as Aiko sedated her. They had run out of time and options. There was no way in Hell Aiko was going to let this one go.

**_2007_**

Detective Jarod Ford made his way up the hall, Detective Ronte George, his partner, at his side. The pair were working on a cold case involving a woman named Luella Margaux Simeon. The morgue was cold and dismal. Heavy metal drifted from an office down the hall. Stopping in front of a door announcing the office as belonging to one Dr. Rymer, the office which the heavy metal was coming from, Jarod knocked twice. The door was pulled open moments later. The young woman standing in the doorway, a can of Paz in hand, straw in her mouth, looked up at the two men. "Dr. Rymer, Medical Examiner," the woman introduced herself.

"Detective Jarod Ford," Jarod reciprocated, extending a hand to the redhead.

Rymer took the offered hand and shook it. "Lysander Police Department?" Jarod nodded, and the woman grinned. "And who's your friend?"

Detective George stepped forward. "George, ma'am, Detective George."

Rymer shook his hand. "I've only been in Lysander three months, myself." She directed her gaze once more on Jarod and sipped her soda. "First job since the internship." Jarod nodded in understanding. Rymer turned and put her can down on the desk. "Simeon, you said?"

"Yes, ma'am," George piped up. "S-I-M-E-O-N."

Rymer shot Jarod a look that said she thought his partner rather handy. Jarod pretended not to notice. Rymer took her place behind her desk and typed the name into the computer search engine. "Assuming the information has been updated onto the local system, I'd give it a couple of minutes. If not, it's down to the basement. The girl who rang me earlier mentioned a cold case, but not the year."

"1971," Jarod supplied.

Rymer scratched her eyebrow absently, frowning. "Well, we'll see," she concluded, pushing her chair out and standing. "You fellas care for a coffee?"

Jarod shrugged. "Could do." George followed the pair out of the room without words. Jarod listened as Rymer discussed rugby. It seemed his partner was rather taken with the girl. Jarod frowned. He made her out in her mid-twenties. Still, there was something about the girl Jarod found at once familiar and unsettling.

* * *

The search came up negative for any Simeon with a first name beginning with 'L' and the three were off to the basement where all the old records were kept.

Rymer located the appropriate file in two minutes. Jarod raised his eyebrows, impressed. Rymer shot him a wink out of the corner of her eye. Jarod frowned, but couldn't quite place the wave of recognition to a name. His frown eased. Perhaps it was best to let the name come to him rather than seek it out?

* * *

Jarod sat across from his father, mug of coffee in hand. Charles sighed and looked away from the programme playing on the television across the far end of the room. "What is it?" he asked.

Jarod frowned and met his father's gaze. "What is what?"

"You seem troubled," his father observed.

"Mmm." Jarod sighed. "It's just- This girl-" His father's concerned expression stopped him in his tracks.

"A girl?"

Jarod realised what that look meant and nodded. "Not that kind of girl."

His father smiled grimly and Jarod had the impression he wanted to believe him, but something still told him to be wary.

"We're not involved," he reiterated. "I just met her today. I wouldn't do that to Zoe."

His father finally relaxed and took up his coffee. "What's the problem, then? Is this something to do with work, the case? You think she may be hiding something?"

Jarod shook his head. "No. It's something else."

Charles's frown returned.

"She seems familiar, but I don't know why, or where it could have been if I've met her before as a young girl."

Charles placed his mug down. "This is really troubling you."

Jarod sighed. "Yes, but I don't know why. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it."

Charles watched his son for a moment. He had no words of advice, and it frustrated him. He found himself scowling inwardly that Jarod would likely ring Sydney later on.

Rain poured down outside and the earth was dark.

**_Elsewhere, the same time_**

Ethan sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, squinting in the dark. Emily sat on her bed, ripping the pages out of her comic as tears sploshed down her cheeks. "Emily?"

Emily started and looked around for the source of the voice.

"It's me," Ethan told her. "It's Ethan." He came to the end of the bed and stopped.

Emily wiped her nose on the back of her hand and sniffed, brushing the tears from her eyelashes. "I'm sorry I woke you."

Ethan shook his head. "It wasn't really you who woke me."

Emily sniffed. "No?"

"No," Ethan confirmed. "Bad dream."

Emily crawled to the end of the bed and hugged him, head on his chest.

Ethan frowned.

The window lit up by a bolt of lightening. Ethan and Emily watched the window, waiting for the subsequent crack that came three seconds later and shook the room.

"You guys," came a sleepy Trilby (It was the name Gemini had given himself. Apparently, when he'd found out it meant 'hat' in one language, and 'singer' in another, he'd had to have it. A singing hat, how funny!) "I'm scared too." Emily looked around as Trilby stumbled over. Emily pulled away from Ethan and slipped off the bed to hug her younger brother. Trilby sniffed. "Thanks, I feel much better now."

Ethan grinned and shook his head.

Emily sat down on the bed and Trilby sat down beside her. She stroked his hair and hummed him a tune. Trilby forgot about the lightening and lay down again. Emily covered him up with her blanket and brushed his fringe out of his eyes. "Sleep well."

She sat on Trilby's bed and watched her little brother sleeping for a time. Ethan came and sat down beside her. "Emily?"

"I don't know what got into me," she told him without looking away from her youngest brother.

Ethan sighed heavily. "You were upset."

Emily nodded and turned to Ethan. "Lie down with me. I don't want to be alone."

Ethan brushed a hand across her hair and nodded. They lay down together and Ethan closed his eyes. Emily's gaze remained on the window. She couldn't decide if she liked it or hated it.

* * *

_Pretty crappy; thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Usually I like Jimmy, today I don't. No particular reason._

* * *

The girl was lying on the floor, pale, covered in blood, barely breathing. Lyle took out his gun and aimed it at her head. He frowned. He put the gun away and knelt down quickly to lift her up into a sitting position. Perhaps he could still take her to a hospital?

* * *

When he took her to the car, the girl's handbag was still in the front seat. She'd need that at the hospital.

At a traffic light, stuck on red, he reached over to find the girl's purse. Her library borrowing card told him her name was Sally.

He returned the card back to the purse and put it back in her handbag; he really shouldn't have been touching it.

He frowned at the traffic light. Was it ever going to change?

* * *

Sally was in bad shape when they reached the hospital. "You don't say anything to anyone," he told her, reaching for her handbag and then for her. At least she wasn't going to be impossible to shift; she was light weight. "We'll fix this," he added.

He was lying, of course. He knew of only one way to fix 'this,' as it was, to fix Jimmy, and that way wasn't cheery.

He dropped his gun on to the front seat before heading into the hospital with Sally.

* * *

**_1974_**

Shelia was a year older than Jimmy, and two years older than Bobby. It was reputed that her favourite song was _Scarborough Fair_, she'd often hum it; it might as well have been true. She was African American and she often said that it was good of Jim – Jim, not Jimmy – that he didn't pick on her for it, as a lot of others did. She'd really only been Jimmy's girlfriend for four months, but she'd told Bobby that when they were married and were ready for kids, she'd name the first girl Rosemary.

Jimmy had taken them for a drive in his mother's car – it had _shitty_ music, but at least he'd been able to lift the keys to it – out to his mother's sister's place in the country. (He refused to call her 'aunt,' she'd always been Maisie to him). She wasn't home; she was vacationing/whoring in Switzerland.

At Maisie's, Bobby found a place to sit on the porch to work on his math homework; it was already a week late. Squinting at the page of his exercise book – it was too dark – he stood up and walked off the porch and sat down on the ground against the front of the porch. He picked at a bit of straggly weed as he tried to figure out a math problem.

He put his hand in his hair and gave it a bit of a tug, pulling a face. How in the world was he supposed to understand how to work out the problem when their regular teacher had been off? The substitute teacher hadn't known anything about math but most of the class hadn't had any complaints because she'd been _hot_, and she hadn't collected up their homework (not that that had stopped her giving them _new_ homework).

A quiet humming announced Sheila's arrival before she sat down beside him and he turned to glance at her quickly, frustration clear on his face.

"Havin' trouble?" she asked, leaning over to peek at his exercise book.

"It doesn't make sense," Bobby complained.

Shelia turned her eyes from the book to Bobby's face, leaning closer still. She placed a palm on his forehead, keeping her eyes on his. "Perhaps you need to take your mind off it for a while?" she suggested.

"I _need_ to get it done!" Bobby stressed. He really did! And then he had the sub's homework to work on afterward. Great!

Bobby placed a hand on her shoulder. She was too close, he couldn't think! He needed to _concentrate_, not _talk_. And besides, what did he have to talk about that she'd want to listen to?

Shelia laughed softly, her chin dipping as her eyes went to his hand on her shoulder.

He quickly removed it.

"Am I upsetting you?"

Bobby shook his head. He just wanted to do his homework.

"Did I upset you somehow?" Sheila pressed.

"No," Bobby finally said, keeping his eyes on his exercise book. He really needed to do this!

Shelia shrugged. "Why'd you turn Susanita down the other day when she asked you?"

Bobby turned to stare at her. "I'm 14!" he told her seriously. He frowned. (Her name was Susan; she was blonde, she wasn't even Latina). "I'm not _into_ girls."

Sheila broke into a light tinkling laughter, her eyes smiling along with her mouth. "Oh gosh, that's sad!" She grinned. "Anything I can interest you in?"

Bobby leant away from her. "I want to _finish_ my homework," he told her.

She swatted a wrist in the air. Homework! Pff!

He put a hand up to stop her getting too close. If she'd drunken too much, he wasn't taking the blame later. Or maybe she'd taken something else.

Shelia's eyes shimmered, a grin curved her mouth.

Bobby attempted to remove his hand, realising his mistake, but she held it fast with her own hand. "Just let me finish this, okay!" he said quickly. "Then we'll go for a walk, I swear."

Shelia leant toward him, shifting onto her knees.

Bobby tried to back away from her but he was blocked by the boards on the front of the porch. He rushed to his feet; Sheila leapt up beside him, catching his arm. He winced. "_Don't._"

Whatever she'd taken, it wasn't doing nice things for her.

Getting up hadn't been much better than sitting as he was still right where he'd been before, only now he was standing.

Sheila sauntered up to him, backed against the porch, fingernails digging into his arm painfully. "Is there something wrong with you?" she asked, shimmying closer. "Don't you like _girls_?" Her eyes flashed, she pressed her knee against the inside of his thigh. "I could _help_ you!" she offered sympathetically.

Telling himself to stay calm, Bobby pushed her away from him. Not especially hard, but enough to get her to let go of his arm. There was nothing wrong with him; he liked girls fine!

Jimmy sprung out from the side of the house, blocking that exit. "Hey, hey! What's the hurry, kiddo?" He threw out a hand and caught Bobby's arm, throwing a quick glance to Sheila. He took a drag of his cigarette. (Maybe he'd taken it from a stash Maisie had hidden away). "Did she scare you?" he asked, his eyes going to Bobby's face.

_Stay calm, B._ "No."

"She hurt you?"

"No."

A look of annoyance crossed Jimmy's face and he pulled a gun from out of his jacket.

Sheila's eyes widened in fear. What was he doing with that?

Jimmy turned his face to her, hand still on Bobby's arm. "Bang! Bang!" He laughed. He'd really had her going! Shucks, it was just a water pistol!

He removed his hand from Bobby's arm to pat him on the head, his gaze fixed to Sheila's face as the fright wore off. He flicked his cigarette away and coughed. Oh shit, he hadn't meant that to happen!

Shelia screamed in horror and pain. Oh God, she was burning!

Bobby ran. He needed to find something! Water! Or something! Oh crap, oh crap! He spun back and raced back toward Sheila. "Get down on the ground!" he hollered. He didn't even want to look at her! Oh God; oh fuck!

Jimmy strolled down from the porch, unfolding a colourful homemade quilt as he did. He frowned; it'd be a pity to waste something someone had put so much effort into, but there was nothing for it, he supposed. He lifted his gaze from the quilt to Sheila.

Bobby sat down on the ground, pulling his legs to his chest, just _staring_ in front of him.

* * *

Once she'd been put out, Jimmy instituted Bobby's help to get Sheila inside, wrenching him onto his feet. He left the pair to locate the bubble bath as the bath ran, the sound loud as water slowly filled in the tub.

Sheila wasn't talking anymore.

He whistled as he returned, stepping into the bathroom.

Sheila lay on the floor, staring dead ahead with wide dark eyes.

The whistling died, and he sucked in a breath. "Holy shit!" He laughed. That was fucked up! He moved forward to take Maisie's cat statue from Bobby, who'd bashed Sheila's head in with it. That'd need a clean up before it was put back to the shelf.

Bobby's eyes were wide and staring, a mirror of Sheila's, and his hands shook as Jimmy pried the statue from him.

* * *

Jimmy lit himself a new cigarette; he'd disposed of the last in Sheila's grave, and reached over to pull open the car door.

He took a drag of his cigarette and switched the radio on.

On the drive back to town, he glanced across at Bobby. "We don't share any of this shit with anyone, we straight, kiddo?" Jimmy frowned. He hit the brake pedal, his eyes on Bobby instead of the road ahead of him. "Right, kiddo?"

Bobby didn't look at him, but instead stared out of the windshield. "Right."

(Maybe that was the day it had started, the day Jimmy had started; maybe that was why he'd chosen that name).

* * *

**_2007_**

As he was driving home, _Scarborough Fair_ came on over the radio which Lyle had been listening to for the news and weather.

He switched it off.

He didn't need to listen to that!


	3. Chapter 3

**_1970_**

May was scared of the lake. She'd watched a video about dinosaurs at school, and now May was scared that dinosaurs were hiding in the lake. Well, it hadn't really been _at school_ – May was four, not _five_ – but she still liked to call it school; besides, it _had_ 'school' in its name!

"Dinosaurs aren't real, May," her brother reassured her. He was older, by _six_ years.

"But they _were_!" May protested. She'd _just_ seen a programme all about them on the preschool's television, and there had been important sounding names featured in the credits. She could _read_, she wasn't stupid!

Her brother whined. It was okay for _her_ to stay up, but he had school in the morning – _five_ days a week, with homework! "I want to sleep!"

"But I'm scared, Lynn!" May protested again.

"They're dead!" Lynn told her, voice heavy with exasperation.

"What if they were just _hiding_?" May asked, sounding scared at the possibility of her own words.

Lynn rolled his eyes, and sat up in bed. "That's stupid!" he told her, turning to look at her.

Standing inside his bedroom door, May's eyes glittered with tears. "I'm _not_ stupid!" she objected, raising her voice. She'd done the best out of all of the other kids when she'd taken the department's _dumb_ test to measure whether she would be ready for primary education next year. She was going to be in school next year; a _real_ school! She wasn't stupid!

"Nobody's saying you're stupid, May," Lynn complained. He was _so_ tired; why couldn't he _sleep_?

"Yes you did!" May whispered fiercely, tears running down her face. She'd heard him with her own ears, _both_ of them! "Yes you did! Yes you did!" she chanted, as tears continued down her face.

"Brothers and sisters aren't supposed to sleep in the same room," Lynn explained. "If they do, their parents get in trouble."

May stomped her foot heavily, dislodging more tears. Her little face scrunched up, she began a new chant: "I won't tell, I won't tell; I won't tell!"

Lynn crossed his arms, resigning. "Alright, _fine_. Just this once." He kept his arms crossed, squinting across the night-filled room, waiting for her to move.

But she didn't. "What about vipers?" she asked, with wide eyes.

Lynn sighed, as embarrassed as he was annoyed. If his sister ever came out with this stuff at school, everyone would think he was stupid, as well. (Even though _he_ didn't think May was stupid; she was probably smarter than him, he knew that). "The car's _locked_ in the garage; the wipers aren't going to hurt you!"

May whimpered. "Vipers! They're a sort of snake, Lynn!"

Lynn huffed. That was it! He needed to go to sleep _right now_! "I don't care what they are, we don't have them in Maine," he ranted, "and that's a fact, because I said so, and I'm older, so if we did, I'd have seen them around!" He took a deep breath. "And I haven't!" He let the rest of his breath out heavily.

May sniffed, not yet sure whether to believe him or not. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, _I'm sure_," he responded, tired. "Run, May, it's after you!"

The four-year-old shrieked and raced from the door to his bed, leaping up onto the bed with his help.

Her older brother laughed. "That was _so_ good!"

May's frightened face turned down. Oh, he'd been playing a rotten joke on her, hadn't he?

He stopped laughing and smiled. "You could be on the athletics team next year, I swear. And if we're in the same House, you can win us lots of points! How cool is that? Go… Red!" He dropped his shoulders. "I forgot the name," he puffed.

"Mariner," May reminded him, frowning.

He grinned. "So good, sis!" He dropped the grin, suddenly serious. "Now go to sleep! I don't want to have to… tickle you!"

May squealed and lay down on the mattress.

Lynn lay down beside her, moving the blanket around to cover them both. "Goodnight, May."

"Goodnight, Lynn."

* * *

**_2007_**

Who built parks – or _playgrounds_ – around lakes, anyway? It was plain stupid, and that wasn't even getting onto _dangerous_! Playgrounds, where kids played! Kids!

Lyle shook his head, and started off down one of the narrow, orange-gravelled paths. He could hear Sydney behind him, but he didn't slow.

He hated parks, and he hated kids!

There was always something to fall over in parks, and it was mostly kids!

Or kids' toys!

* * *

**_1974_**

It was suffocating under the water, but the air above was just as suffocating. Out there, he couldn't breathe, just like Sheila couldn't breathe anymore. She was dead, and dead people didn't breathe. And _he'd_ killed her!

Even though the water hurt his eyes, he didn't blink. He didn't want the last thing he remembered to be darkness; he'd had enough of _stupid_ darkness!

And he'd had enough of that stupid shed!

It was so stupid!

And he was stupid for putting up with it.

He was so stupid!

He couldn't even do his math homework. And it wasn't even that _hard_. He was 14! What would it be like when he was 15, or 16? Or later? How hard would it be then?

How many years would it have been?

Years that he'd taken away from Sheila; that she wouldn't get to live.

He was so, so stupid!

Why would his father have put him in the shed if it wasn't because he was stupid?

He really couldn't breathe, but he fought back his panic as hard as he could. He was doing this – _him_ – not anyone else. This was _his_ decision!

When he was gone, his father wouldn't hit his mother – they wouldn't have a stupid, stupid son whom his father could blame on his mother anymore – when he was gone, Susan would forget about him and ask another boy out instead, a much _nicer_ boy; when he was gone, he'd forget all of it; he'd even forget Sheila's eyes.

He couldn't breathe, and then he could, and he started screaming and thrashing. He wanted to die! Goddamn it, didn't any of them get it – he _wanted_ to die! Why wouldn't they just let him die!

* * *

Still in his school clothes, and soaking wet, his father left him in the shed to think long and hard about his behaviour.

He hoped he died in there.

* * *

**_2007_**

It was a bright day, an ideal day for a trip to the park, and the playground was uncomfortably packed with screaming, running children. Sydney's attention had gone to the children, but Lyle didn't want to look at _kids_; besides, they were _supposed_ to be looking for Jarod!

Still, perhaps Sydney thought Jarod would be hanging around the kids, because endangering the lives of kids wasn't such a bad thing, they were just kids, they weren't even _proper_ people yet, and they certainly didn't have _jobs_!

Lyle crossed his arms and continued walking. If stalling Jarod's recapture was his plan, then it'd be _him_ who'd be taking the fall for it, no one else!

He turned his attention to the park's main entrance, and the tourist information boards mounted there; a few metal benches arrayed off to one side. Lyle wondered if they had a notice up about how many people had drowned in the lake; that'd be the only piece of information he'd be interested in if _he_ was a parent. (Which, he hardly needed to be reminded, he _was_).

Suppressing a sigh, he headed off the path and across the lawn, towards the information boards, taking a mental tally of the people already gathered there, when his attention was caught by a redheaded woman in a blue dress.

Oh, fuck!

It wasn't Jarod, but the 37-year-old was close enough to Jarod – as his sister – to warrant an interest in her by the Center.

He grabbed the arm of a passing 11-year-old. "Where are you going, Jill? I thought Donna told you to stay where she'd be able to see you when she drove by to pick you up."

The girl gave a high-pitched scream, causing many heads to turn their way, but he maintained his grip on her arm.

With his free hand, he took out a copy of a photograph of Jarod. "Have you seen a man answering to this description?"

Jill's frightened eyes darted to the photograph and she immediately shook her head.

He released her arm and she sprinted away, toward one of the coin-operated electric barbeques. He scanned the park around him before turning his gaze to the benches.

(Jill was quickly retelling her tale to a boy around her own age).

Oh, for the love of God! Lyle refrained from any loud cuss words that might attract attention to him and wondered if Emily's hearing had sustained any damage when he'd pushed her out of that window, or if she was always so dim.

Or maybe she was waiting for Jarod?

Returning the photograph to his suit jacket, he resumed his walk towards the entrance, ignoring Jill and the boy she had recruited to accompany her, but when the kids saw that he was leaving, they walked faster. "Not today, Brand," he told the boy, and kept walking.

The kids didn't follow.

Drawing nearer the information boards and the benches, Lyle noticed a couple of things. Emily was eating peanuts out of a bag, the blue dress she was wearing was apparently decorated with a dolphin pattern, it was a short dress, she was wearing brown sandals, and her gaze was fixed on an ice-cream van parked a short distance along the street.

Obviously, she was thinking about ice-cream and not the peanuts that she was crunching absently. Either that or she was _supposed_ to be keeping watch for Jarod who was selling ice-creams from the ice-cream van.

Deciding on a casual tone, he waited until he was close enough to touch her arm if he'd wanted to, and stopped. "Emily?"

Emily's head turned at the mention of her name, green eyes widening.

* * *

**_1970_**

He'd thought she was too young, but their father had decided that it would be a treat for passing her test, so the next day when Lynn got off school and when his father had come to pick him up, May had been sporting new dolphin earrings.

She told him that it hadn't hurt, but Lynn didn't believe her. Maybe it didn't hurt now, but it had. (She was too young for piercings, hadn't his father and he argued about that last night? _Loudly_).

His father turned the radio on for the drive home, and May hummed along to all of the songs she knew, but Lynn refused to give into their cheerfulness, and instead took out his exercise book to work on his geography homework.

She was going to get an infection, and then she'd be prescribed a course of antibiotics and she'd get an upset stomach.

He didn't even know why she'd wanted them in the first place! Just because the lady in the photograph had them, so she had to have them too!

He rolled his eyes, and continued working on his geography homework.

* * *

May wasn't wearing the dolphin earrings. Lynn had used the pocket money he'd saved up to buy her a pair of silver bell-shaped studs, and, because he'd _just_ gotten them for her, she'd put them on specially. (She almost liked them as much as her dolphin ones).

It was still night when Lynn woke, his heart pounding too fast considering he didn't remembering having had a bad dream. He'd started to think maybe it was because he'd eaten too much at dinner, when his little sister's terror hit him like a punch, knocking him out of bed and onto the floor.

With difficulty – it really _hurt_ – he lifted himself off the floor, and stumbled to the door. He had to get to May! He had to stop _the people_ who were scaring May!

Oh, heck!

People!

There were people in the house!

He'd just made it out of his bedroom door when he was hit by something very hard from behind.

His last thought before he blacked out was, _Oh, he's one too._

* * *

**_2007_**

Emily leapt from the bench, scattering peanuts at her feet. She'd started to shake.

Lyle's eyes lingered on her face for a moment, and then he collapsed.

* * *

**_1977_**

Jimmy's eyes flashed dangerously. He couldn't believe he was hearing this shit from his best friend. Tell on you; I'm going to tell on you! "You're going to tell who, you little shit?" he yelled, face reddening. He took a threatening step closer to Bobby. "Let's see you tell them when you're _dead_!"

Bobby took off running.

Jimmy chased after him. He was older, and he _never_ complained about headaches in Gym. He'd catch the dumb shit, and then they'd see who was going to tell on whom!

He wouldn't have to worry about headaches after he'd dealt with him. Ever again.


	4. Chapter 4

**_1978_**

There'd been a long coma, then, when he'd woken, there'd been _so many_ questions, and all of the newspaper clippings of May Miller's disappearance.

And all he could think was that he'd let them. He'd let them take May.

* * *

Coming home, he'd found that his father had put away all of May's photographs, and when he'd dug one out of his box of keepsakes and bought a frame for it to go in, placing it on the mantelpiece in the lounge room, his father had placed it out of sight and grounded him for two weeks.

He didn't stay two days.

* * *

When he reached the state line, he didn't even remember May. He wasn't her brother anymore.

Lynn was dead.

He still had a sister. Her name was Miss Parker. And he'd find her if it killed him.

* * *

**_2007_**

Emily walked into her father's motel room and closed the door after herself, making it clear that her business was with him, and that it was private.

The Major merely regarded her. He wouldn't know what she'd come for until it was out of her mouth.

"How did you know where I'd be?" Emily launched right into her questions. "That day you rescued me, how did you know I'd be there, for certain? Would you have bothered, would you have risked capture, if you hadn't been absolutely certain?"

The Major frowned, but there was no use lying. Emily mightn't have been a Pretender as her brothers were, as he was – though untrained – but she was exceptionally talented when it came to picking out liars. "I was told that was where you'd be," he replied.

Emily crossed her arms over her chest. "By who? Catherine Parker was dead! Sydney? Did Sydney tell you? Was it him? Jarod's _mentor_?"

She said the word with a distain, a disgust that made him proud, but still he couldn't lie. "No."

"Who?" Emily shouted. She was so sick of lies, so sick of nobody _talking_! She'd had enough of lies!

"A young man," the Major replied, sighing.

Emily's face contorted in anger. "_He_ told you! The fucking bastard told you! Do you know what he did, do you have any idea?" She was ranting, not bothering to control her volume. "Do you know what he did to _me_?"

The sound hurt the Major's ears – his daughter's words_ hurt_ – but he knew he'd have to once again choose the truth. "I know what he did; I asked him to do it," he told her, kicking any tiredness to the sidelines. Emily deserved to hear it in all of its glorious hideousness, in all of its terrible despair. He'd only ever wanted to _help_ her!

A look of fury froze on Emily's face, a fury not directed at him, but a fury he felt like a terrible, insurmountable pain inside.

He watched Emily's lip start to tremble, and he knew he'd have to say what he wanted to say fast, what he _needed_ to say, just to get it _out_! He'd kept it inside for so, so long. "It was supposed to have been reported; then you were supposed to be relocated. It was never supposed to go as far as it did." He wanted to ask, 'Why didn't you say anything? Oh, baby, why? Why didn't you say something?' But he'd already done enough, already done too much!

And for all that, all that _he'd_ done, all he could say was 'it was supposed to; you were supposed to.'

Emily's eyes were green and black glass, her voice hard, _dead_, like those glass eyes. "Why?"

"He'd needed to know what had happened to his mother," the Major told her. "I made a deal with him."

Emily's eyes filled with tears, but she couldn't speak. She turned and fled from him, from the motel room, leaving the door wide open in her wake, like the wound he felt inside, the wound he'd inflicted upon himself.

And his daughter.

* * *

When he visited her in the hospital, Sally's eyes were filled with tears. She stared at the flowers in horror, but it wasn't the flowers she was afraid of. All she would say was, "Don't let him come back, don't let him come back."

He turned away from her and walked out, still holding the flowers. It was only at the door, not stopping, that he answered her. "I won't."

He was going to make things right, settle this. For his cousins; for all of those girls.

This time, Jimmy wasn't going to get away. Not even with the _entire_ Tower behind him!

He wasn't Bobby anymore! He wasn't someone's play toy.

He was Lynn Miller.

(And now he knew).

* * *

Jarod closed the case file he'd been reading over and slipped it away into his desk drawer.

It was all over.

Tomorrow, he'd be going home; home to his family.

He'd forget Charlotte, and he'd go back to helping people. Charlotte didn't need his help; she never had.


	5. Chapter 5

He'd never had a wife, May Lin (or Fung, as her real name had been) had been his partner; a partner assigned to him by a woman named Margaret whose family his father, Ben, had stayed with briefly as a boy, whilst still in the system. Lyle had never met Margaret, but she'd been a part of Catherine's plan (at the time, he'd believed her to be his mother, and Ben to be his uncle) and if Catherine had trusted Margaret, then he'd seen no reason not to also.

Catherine may have been gone, but they were not, and his sister was now working for the Center; he could have said he'd done it out of caring for the others also trapped in the Center's machinations, the others who'd been taken from their families either by kidnapping or false pretence, but, more than that, he'd done it for her, for his sister.

With their mother gone, she was the only family he had left.

May Lin had been an Empath, as he was, and when she'd asked for suggestions for a cover name, he'd suggested May Lin. Not too common (when all of the girls from overseas were increasingly going for Anglicised names), but not too uncommon. Mr. Lee, her handler, hadn't disagreed. It was the name of a person that you might trust, were you to meet them on the street and strike up a conversation; a gentle, unassuming name, and a name that, whilst not entirely Western, Westerners could still pronounce.

Yes, it was a good name.

But the Tower had found out about May Lin, and they'd sent people to deal with her. Only, it had not been enough to simply kill her, they'd had to make it appear as though it'd had nothing to do with them, and it seemed like a good idea to them to do that by making it look like it'd been her 'husband.' A perfect idea, in fact, Jimmy thought, when he discovered just who her husband thought he was.

And he had an even more marvellous idea to go along with it.

He was going to take care of Hong Lee's operatives, one by one, except, it wasn't going to be him who did it. Or rather, no one was going to suspect that it'd had been him when they had an even likely candidate to pin it to; especially seeing as he was 'dead' (as they would later discover, courtesy of Jarod, thank you very much).

Lee had been a pain in the Tower's side for too long, as far as he was concerned, and now that he had such a talented Empath, just looking for a way out, anything not to have to take the blame for his little sister's abduction, it was the perfect inspiration for a foolproof plan.

And the funniest thing was, the name 'Bobby' had given to his alternate 'personality' had been completely telling all along!

* * *

Visiting the hospital the day after, he found that Sally was no longer in her room, and, asking at the enquiries desk, he was told that she'd died of heart arrest.

He didn't believe that, so he turned around and went back for a look at Sally's room again. The Tower must have come for her, he decided, but it wouldn't go on; he would stop it.

The heart arrest had been brought on by an injection of potassium, he discovered, in Sally's hospital room, and took a seat on the floor against the wall. Neither he nor Bobby had been trained as Empaths (another point of commonality they'd shared as well as looking similar enough to one another to be mistaken, years later, one for the other). He needed to distance himself from Sally's death – his chest hurt a lot – so he turned his mind to something else, to the bills he still had to pay, though he usually paid them at the first available opportunity after he'd gotten them.

He couldn't afford to change his routine, he decided. He may not have been who he'd thought he was a week ago, but he didn't want – or _need_ – the world to know that.

What he needed was to keep going as if nothing had happened, as if everything was as normal as it ever was.

And to get up off the floor, and get out of this hospital; it was starting to make him feel pukey in the worst way.

* * *

He drove home, pondering the possibility that Sally had been a serious enough threat to the Center to be taken out, when it occurred to him that he'd been the one who'd thought he'd tried to kill her the last time, and he started to wonder why he'd tried to do that, or if Sally's use of the word 'he' had referred to someone else altogether, and why he, then, thought it had been he who had done it.

If he hadn't done it, but he thought he had, then it must have followed that he'd been set up somehow to think he had, which didn't really _follow_.

If he was Bobby, why would he go for that?

Bobby had thought that it'd been an alternate personality, but Bobby was dead. So either the alternate personality had originated with him as a result of his thinking he was Bobby, and having 'shared' his experiences, or it was something else going on.

He parked his car and walked to his apartment, still thinking the dilemma through. He wasn't exactly a Pretender, which might have helped at this point, and his head had really started to hurt back at the hospital, and it hadn't stopped.

_Think, B_, he encouraged himself, turning the key in the lock and stepping into his apartment. _Oh, they've been controlling you. They know all of the right buttons to press, because _they _put them there._

A man stepped into the hallway from out of the lounge room, a digital recorder in hand.

Lyle didn't take out his gun, he was too stunned. _Jimmy_, he thought, and then he registered the recorder.

Jimmy pressed the play function on the recorder and a song started to play – _the_ song May had written for him on her first day at preschool when she'd been tasked with drawing or making something for her sibling (or parent) that expressed her caring for them; she'd _written_ him a song because she couldn't play it, it'd be a while before she developed that sort of dexterity in her fingers.

There was something cheap and nasty about it _literally_ being a 'button,' but the thought didn't last to its end before his conditioning kicked in.

He would forget now; they'd tell him to forget, and he would.

He would go back to being Bobby/Lyle, and he'd forget his little sister had ever existed (and the song she had written for him would mean nothing).


End file.
